[asia-apec 1100] MONSANTO, IRRI, and THAI NGO ALLIANCE ABOUT TO COLLAPSE?

[PAN Asia Pacific]

*FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE*
*PLEASE CIRCULATE WIDELY*

MONSANTO, IRRI, and THAI NGO ALLIANCE ABOUT TO COLLAPSE?

PAN-AP update on Monsanto, IRRI project in Thailand
April 28, 1999

On April 6, 1999 the Pesticide Action Network- Asia and the Pacific (PAN-AP) and BIOTHAI sent out a 
joint press release on the proposed project between Monsanto, IRRI, the Department of Agriculture and the 
Population and Community Development Association (PDA) to introduce industrial farming with 
Monsanto’s pesticides in Northeast Thailand through micro-credit.  Subsequently on April 23,  PAN-AP 
sent out copies of a letter from PAN-AP’s Executive Director, Sarojeni .V Rengam, to the Chairman of the 
PDA, Mechai Viravaidya.  Since then, other concerned people and organisations have written to Mechai 
and IRRI sharing their concerns about the project (some letters may be viewed on our website, 
http://www.poptel.org.uk/panap/).

The press release and letters have caused alarm among the project’s partners.  In an E-mail memo from Ian 
Bevege (Principal Advisor for the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research [ACIAR] and 
Member of the Task Force on Genetic Resources, Plant Resources Committee, SCARM) to Ken Fisher 
(Deputy Director General for Research of IRRI), Mr. Bevege states: “Obviously [the press release] has the 
potential to harm IRRI . . . The last thing we want is an anti-IRRI campaign among NGOs or among the 
luddites who are bent on capturing the biotech agenda.  Nevertheless there may be real issues of equity and 
real concern here.”  ACIAR, like IRRI, is a member of the Consultative Group on International 
Agricultural Research.  

Monsanto, IRRI, and the PDA are now looking at ways to diffuse public concerns about the project.  It is 
possible that PDA may remove its name from the project and that its international division, PDI, may take 
over.  There is also the possibility that PDA could continue to work with IRRI while another NGO could be 
brought on board to receive and distribute Monsanto’s technology.   At present, sources in Thailand 
confirm that PDA has changed the staff working on the project in an effort to quash any leaks of 
information.   

There is also reason to believe that Monsanto will back down from the project in response to the public 
outcry over the project.  Vasana Chinvarakorn from the Bangkok Post recently spoke to IRRI officials in 
the Philippines, who suggested that it was likely that Monsanto would pull out of the deal.  

-A Marriage of Convenience-

In a conversation with Witoon Lianchamroon of BIOTHAI, Mr. Sarnya of Monsanto Thailand explained 
how the project had come about quite accidentally.  It seems that Monsanto’s field workers were out 
promoting herbicide in the Northeast of Thailand when they bumped into IRRI and PDA workers.  They 
discussed their work and immediately saw the benefits of collaboration.  Soon after, Innovative 
Partnerships for Agricultural Changes in Technology (INPACT) was born.  Other sources, however, say 
that it was IRRI that first approached the PDA about a year ago.

Apparently, the Kenan Institute of Asia (KIAsia) will also be involved with funding, if the project ever gets 
started.  According to its website “the overall objective of KIAsia is to promote mutually advantageous 
cooperative programs among US and Asian corporations, universities, government agencies, and assistance 
organisations.”  KIAsia is funded by USAID.  The participation of KIAsia adds one more link to the 
striking web of high-level interrelationships involved in the project:  Paul Wedel, Head of KIAsia, and 
Mechai Viravaidya are the Secretary and President, respectively, of the same international school in 
Bangkok;  Mechai Viravaidya is a board member of IRRI; and, Paul Teng, Director of Biotechnology for 
Monsanto and contact for the INPACT project, is a former high-level employee of IRRI.

*** Please visit the PANAP website for more information
-April 6, 1999 Joint Press Release from BIOTHAI and PAN-AP
-Letter from PAN-AP to the PDA
-Letters from Mae-Won Ho, Brewster Kneen, and Nettie Wiebe of Via Campesina
-Background Information on R.I.C.E (Rice, IRRI, and Corporate Earnings)